An ongoing review of politics and culture

A number of Scene readers have probably noticed that Ross recently — wisely, I think — disabled comments on his site. This comes at a time when there is a lot of discussion about the value, or lack thereof, of comments on blogs and especially on newspaper and magazine websites. Here are a grumpy Bob Garfield and a more sanguine Ira Glass discussing the matter on On the Media; here are some reflections on that segment by Derek Powazek (he has some follow-up posts too); and here are some thoughts from Jack D. Lail — scroll down for a response from Jamie, a comment policeman.

I have two questions in light of all this. First, why have comments on the Scene been, relatively speaking, civil and troll-free? I think we have been incredibly fortunate — so far! — and while I have a few ideas about why that’s the case, I’d be interested in reader ideas. (Civil, troll-free reader ideas, I mean.)

Second: is it possible that the post-plus-comments architecture of blogs is morphing into something else? Might we ultimately find our way to a situation in which people who want to comment on other people’s posts will simply have to get blogs of their own? And if so, what would this do to the blogosphere’s culture? Would it improve it or degrade it?

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Respective of your final question, Alan, I think that there’s no straight answer to this. On the one hand, the new situation might sufficiently diffuse commentary so as to asphyxiate any chance of intelligent conversation amongst those interested in engage — unless, of course, we all comment on each first round of comments, creating a frustratingly complex web of commentaries lacking a clear hierarchy or chronology.

On the other hand, we already do this, perhaps addressing something further, or directing it toward a more specific audience (Some of the few people who read my web-log, for instance, may not ever come here, or to Eunomia, so my posting about something that I read on another web-log might open the topic to a cohort of readers otherwise denied the opportunity to engage. As long as comment boxes on the original post remain open, and publish ping-backs, this, perhaps, even further opens the debate, allowing, say, the reader of an original Peter Suderman post to read my response on my page, maybe to engage someone who has responded directly to me, and, perhaps, to peruse other posts of mine, helping further to disseminate information and to increase dialogue.

I don’t know that I like the idea of having to have one’s own blog to join in conversation, but expanding on —- rather than replacing — the post-plus-comments architecture, already, has proven to be a positive addition to the web-log sphere.

TAS posts tend to be written in a very agreeable non-ideological tone, which I think disarms anybody who’d want to leave nasty comments. You have to read the whole thing to actually get a TAS post; the energy that requires is too much for those who just want to cause trouble. The mix of political posts with lighter fare also helps. It’s sort of a reminder that the people doing this have lives too.

I don’t think the post-plus-comments architecture is going to go, but if it did, then I think we would get better blogs because more people would get blogs. But we’d also need a better way for bloggers to notice responses to their blog posts. Trackbacks are a fine idea but they don’t work in practice. We’d need something like Trackbacks + Technorati + something else that could give you a threaded/tree view of blog discussions: blogs would become the comments.

Hmm, that’s a great idea actually… (If someone does a startup like this, I call prior art!)

i think there are two main reasons that the americanscene doesn’t attract the same kind of obnoxious trolls that ross douthat did.
1. TAS has a smaller readership and therefore is a less inviting target.
2. TAS is consistently right-of-center and mostly has an audience that is sympathetic or at least understanding. in contrast, Atlantic “voices” has (had) people like Yglesias and Sullivan and when their readers click over they are horrified at the christianism being espoused on what is allegedly a respectable website.

I don’t think it’s necessarily the high-minded and civil posts that act as troll repellent since megan mcardle is similar to TAS in these respects and she attracts some of the worst trolls i’ve ever seen (particularly since she moved to the atlantic, her comment threads at asymmetrical information were fairly pleasant).

Must beg to differ. Mr. Douthat is a civil advocate, not ‘horrifying’ to anyone with ordinary sensibilities. He was nevertheless bedeviled by trolls consderably more vulgar than MM’s. However, nearly all of the trouble was caused by perhaps two individuals. The blogging facility they use at <i>The Atlantic</i> did not permit their IP addresses to be banned and other measures taken proved ineffective.

if you were responding to me i think you took me too literally. i don’t think mr. douthat is objectively horrifying (nor for that matter do i think /any/ writer for the Atlantic is offensive), rather i think mr. douthat might be horrifying to a regular sullivan reader who as fully internalized the business about some voters having religiously inspired values being a dangerous threat tantamount to direct clerical government and Oakeshottian/Burkean “doubt” being not skepticism of social change but skepticism about (traditional) restrictions on personal autonomy.

there are some nonlinear dynamics here. nasty comments work best when the whole environment is nasty and everyone is jockying to be the the Big Nasty. if you leave a nasty comment that stix out like a sore thumb then you just look a fool. similarly, a very pedantic and discursive comment amongst the nastyness is totally wasted in the din of cognitive-barf.

there might be a stochastic or exogenous shock to the metastable equilibrium at TAS which could result in the same dynamic that you see at ross & MM’s. at that point posters might have to come in and prune and drive the equilibrium back to their preferred set point.

One could simply delete comments that cross whatever line one wishes to set for acceptable discourse, although that sort of oversight project could become overly time-consuming. So eliminating the comment section is understandable, but it’s still probably a mistake, I think. If one’s posts are interesting, one will be saying things laden with ambiguity and complexity and about which further insight can surely be provided by others’ perspectives. A blogger should not imagine her first word to be the last word, the only worthwhile take on the subject. E-mailing the author and writing one’s own blog are always options, but not vehicles for any sort of immediacy of communication or the creation of a sense of community.

Other options include promoting courteous, thoughtful comments to some sort of more-prominent venue on the site or downgrading (by fiat or reader vote) objectionable comments to a less-visible or fenced-off corner of the site, so that commenters would have some incentive to tailor their style to the editorial guidelines. Again, these options might require more patience and work, especially in the conception and initial tryouts. Despite these administrative burdens, I think there’s some inherent value to the idea of onsite dialogue that one should be hesitant to cast aside.

I do think there’s some value to blog commenting— but then I would, wouldn’t I?

One thing I’d like to say is that I think people are often far too certain that there’s a clear line between illegitimate trollery and legitimate commenting. Very often where you stand on an individual issue makes a huge difference as to whether you think someone is a troll or not.

If any trolls were under the bridge here at TAS, they would realize during their lurking and reading that no one is going to fight with them in kind. I haven’t read anything more than what I’d experience in a discussion with friends who were excited about the ideas they were exchanging. It probably wouldn’t be rewarding enough to a troll-ish personality to pick a fight here.

I think size matters—it makes the blog a more attractive target, and it also provides well-meaning commentators who feed the troll by continuing a flamewar. Authors get tired of that sort of thing and then just delete/block/disemvowel the troll.

Also, the disagreement among TAS authors probably helps. It makes it harder to feel like you’re a bunch of ideologues to be taken down.

Freddie is right that the difference between Passionate commentator & troll is small and easy to slip over.
After all who doesn’t remeber Freddie’s calling Yglesias a trust fund scumbag? Was that trollery or showing his passion? I’m still not sure.

I hope you don’t mind my using you as an example, Freddie: regarding Rajesh’s comment, there’s no doubt that, like many of us, Freddie can (or used to) get unnecessarily heated and say some extreme things that don’t really help the conversation. But it’s always in the context of making an actual argument, of having a position on an issue and being willing to defend it. And Freddie’s angry posts have always been a small percentage of his overall contribution. Whatever that is, it’s not trolling,

People often talk about trolls as angry people, but the true troll always has his anger under control, because he’s thinking about what he can to make other people angry. And since that’s his goal, it doesn’t really matter whether he does it on Ross’s site or Megan’s or anywhere else. This is also why I think it’s incorrect to say that it was one troll, or one or two trolls, who screwed up Ross’s comments. In fact, it was all the other people who so consistently and pathetically rose to the bait. We’ll get our TAS trolls eventually, and when we do, it’s the response of non-trolls that will largely determine how big a problem it becomes.

Mr. Jacobs: there’s something to the theory that trolls thrive more when people take their bait. On the other hand, Ross practically NEVER responded to ANYTHING in his comboxes. So, trolls (or, as I saw it, the one megatroll) certainly weren’t getting any satisfaction of any kind from Ross. In fact, a troll on Ross’ site could never be sure that Ross ever read anything he’d ever posted. Ross didn’t even bother with polite refutations, let alone withering comebacks and put-downs.

Ross’ unresponsiveness was understandable, but it never seemed to starve the trolls!

Here at TAS, you and your fellow bloggers DO regularly respond to combox posts, engaging in give and take with combox posters. For that reason alone, I’m surprised you haven’t attracted more trolls, who’d at least have the pleasure of knowing that you (and Reihan and Noah and Co.) are actually reading their supposedly clever insults, whether or not you ever addressed them.